Reviews for Zanoni

The average rating for Zanoni based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-05 00:00:00 Gene Fogerty It is easier to add to our read list here at Goodreads and a couple years ago if I found a book while reading or listening to an OTR (Old Time Radio), I started putting a note in my comment section. Edward Bulwer Lytton's Zanoni was a find many years before I started Goodreads and taking notes. I wish I could remember exactly what book mentioned this story but I am guessing probably Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Charlotte's Inheritance" or "Bird of Prey". Besides those books being wonderful, the author would list books when appropriate; hence "Zanoni". It has taken me a long time to finally pick up this story and all I can say in a few words, this story speaks to my soul! It lifts me up higher in my thoughts of life and The Almighty! Is this a religious read? It depends on what one considers that realm. There are no scriptures quoted but the good/evil element of humanity and Faith or lack of in God is apparent. This is an ultimate favorite and wonderful find for me. I read with a Kindle, so with that device you can highlight a name/thing and search the book. The reason I bring that up is a name I did this to showed up in another story in my Delphi Collection of his works. So in my curiosity, I came up with a story that is shorter, written earlier with some of the same characters, "Zicci". Many older stories are not always talked about on the Internet and "Zicci" was that sort. So of course I will read that next and compare. Edward Bulwer Lytton was an interesting character and writer. I will be putting some quotes here from my edition. "One of the peculiarities of Bulwer was his passion for occult studies. They had a charm for him early in life, and he pursued them with the earnestness which characterised his pursuit of other studies. He became absorbed in wizard lore; he equipped himself with magical implements, ' with rods for transmitting influence, and crystal balls in which to discern coming scenes and persons; and communed with spiritualists and mediums." This is a kind of historical fiction story. Its center is of Robespierre and The French Revolution Reign of Terror. Before the author goes into that history, he talks of the men of Enlightenment. After reading this book, I come away with knowing more history and the men of The Enlightenment Age. The lack of belief in God is quite profuse and it is always interesting when some men about to die look for God who they denied exist. I come away after reading this with a stronger faith in God. Can one believe in God and science? Yes, there are so many wonders and unknowns that may never be explained and having a Faith in God does not make one any less of intelligent because one believes. We have a free choice to believe or not believe, I chose to have Faith. "It has been justly said that the present half century has witnessed the rise and triumphs of science, the extent and marvels of which even Bacon's fancy never conceived, simultaneously with superstitions grosser than any which Bacon's age believed. "The one is, in fact, the natural reaction from the other. The more science seeks to exclude the miraculous, and reduce all nature, animate and inanimate, to an invariable law of sequences, the more does the natural instinct of man rebel, and seek an outlet for those obstinate questionings, those 'blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realised,' taking refuge in delusions as degrading as any of the so-called Dark Ages." It was the revolt from the chilling materialism of the age which inspired the mystic creations of "Zanoni" and "A Strange Story." When writing this story, Lytton had some help from a friend who after he died left some manuscripts of the unknown and the author chose to unite this with his ideas and a story line. Two quotes below are from that gentleman talking to the author and Lytton giving a history of his friend. "I will believe him to have been a very respectable man, who only spoke the truth when he boasted of his power to be in two places at the same time." "Is that so difficult?" said the old gentleman; "if so, you have never dreamed!" "He seemed to have seen much of the world, and to have been an eye-witness of the first French Revolution, a subject upon which he was equally eloquent and instructive. At the same time he did not regard the crimes of that stormy period with the philosophical leniency with which enlightened writers (their heads safe upon their shoulders) are, in the present day, inclined to treat the massacres of the past: he spoke not as a student who had read and reasoned, but as a man who had seen and suffered." Lytton writes to the readers. "This confession leads me to the sentence with which I shall conclude: If, reader, in this book there be anything that pleases you, it is certainly mine; but whenever you come to something you dislike, ' lay the blame upon the old gentleman! London, January, 1842." The editor writes. "As a work of art the romance is one of great power. It is original in its conception, and pervaded by one central idea; but it would have been improved, we think, by a more sparing use of the supernatural. The inevitable effect of so much hackneyed diablerie ' of such an accumulation of wonder upon wonder ' is to deaden the impression they would naturally make upon us. In Hawthorne's tales we see with what ease a great imaginative artist can produce a deeper thrill by a far slighter use of the weird and the mysterious." I disagree wholeheartedly! I think the supernatural element is an important part of the story for so many reasons. It gives more of a good verses evil; the meaning of life and would one really like to live forever on Earth or look for everlasting life in Heaven. You see many characters which at the end of the story, the editor explains, though he says the reader will come away with their own ideas. One character has no care but science for science's sake without a care for humanity. Another sees humanity and science and the need to uplift others. A character of passion and desires that does not think of consequences and not a bad person. A person with superstition that lurks in the mind and is afraid of things unknown not having Faith in what is good. I could go on and on but will rap my thoughts up soon. In the explanation of the story at the end, they say this is really not a romance especially on Viola's part but I disagree again. This is romance from start to finish. I loved Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities but to me this exceeds that book in so many ways. I never knew what twist and turns this book would take; the ending was all that in grandeur. In my edition the story described- "Zanoni was published in 1842 and is often considered to be the first modern British novel of occult fantasy. The book was hugely influential on theosophists and other similar groups during the nineteenth century. Bulwer-Lytton confessed that in his younger years he took a great interest in the secret philosophical society Rosicrucianism, wishing to truly understand its theory and doctrine. The sect was founded during the medieval period in Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz and was centred on the idea of discovering ancient truths and understanding nature and the spiritual realm that are beyond the reach of the average man. The central characters of the novel are the eponymous Zanoni, his spiritual master Mejnour, and the young aspiring opera singer Viola. Bulwer-Lytton sets the novel in two worlds; the physical and material one, and the transcendent realm, which can only be accessed by those of the brotherhood. When the novel opens, Zanoni has already undergone the initiation into the sect and trained enough to reach the highest level of the order and become immortal." Story in short- Zanoni meets a young Italian girl, Viola and her English suitor, Clarence Glyndon and seeing their future wants to help them. If interested, I have a lot of highlights and some notes; look on my Edward Bulwer Lytton shelf for that collection. "Oh, when shall men learn, at last, that if the Great Religion inculcates so rigidly the necessity of FAITH, it is not alone that FAITH leads to the world to be; but that without faith there is no excellence in this, ' faith in something wiser, happier, diviner, than we see on earth! ' the artist calls it the Ideal, ' the priest, Faith. The Ideal and Faith are one and the same. Return, O wanderer, return! Feel what beauty and holiness dwell in the Customary and the Old. Back to thy gateway glide, thou Horror! and calm, on the childlike heart, smile again, O azure Heaven, with thy night and thy morning star but as one, though under its double name of Memory and Hope!" I loved every page of this story and it will not be easily forgotten! 💖💖 When a reader finds a book it talks to them and when one finds one that touches their heart, that is a masterpiece in their mind!

Review # 2 was written on 2019-10-28 00:00:00 Linda Knabel It is the second book written by B.Lytton that I read, the first, - The Last Days Of Pompeii- being written in the same frame, with more history, however. "Zanoni" leaves more place for esotericism, but, in this case, what is esoteric is not so by the nature, it's only accidentaly. This kind of literature skillfully plays a very popular stake today : the victim-consciousness stake. Its succes comes largely from a sentimental blackmail, that apppels to our natural compassion for the victims, while demonizing the "persecutors" of service. The example given by Faivre - DaVinci's Code- is very eloquent. "Zanoni" - it seems to me a complex book, difficult for an uninvited reader in the subject of Rosicrucianism, but, over the 600 pages you will discover an exceptional writing, with meticulous descriptions of the characters, sometimes too meticulous, but maybe that's what I liked most, - the evocation of the eternal battle between mind and heart of mankind. Also, a wonderful love story , translated into an original writing, with deep reflections, evocative of an era well rooted in romanticism. But after all, it's about fear. " Thou art unfit for the science that has made me and others what we are , or have been; for thy whole nature is one fear ! Fear ! and the worst fear , fear of the world's opinion, fear of the dark passions and the conventionalists, fear of thine own impulses when most generous, fear of thine own powers when thy genius is most bold ; fear that virtue is not eternal ; fear that God does not live in heaven to keep watch on earth ; fear, the fear of little men ; and that fear is never known to the great ".